Never Forget

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Today is Yom HaShoah, well it's after sundown to technically the day of remembrance for the Holocaust victims and heroes is over, but I'm just getting around to writing now. Such is life when neither child naps!

Today always brings a myriad of emotions for me. For the past three years I've had intentions of going to the variety of events that commemorate the day and each year I find I'm too exhausted from the kids, don't have someone to watch them or today, the baby was screaming on the way to the mall for the "Unto Every Person There Is A Name" where they were reading names of victims for 8 straight hours. He then fell asleep before arriving so we went home, allowing him to sleep for 20 minutes in the car. I thought once again, well, I guess I'll go to something next year, but in the back of my head I worry that the survivors are getting up there in age and can't live forever. I must hear their stories as often as possible. We all need to hear their stories so we can see their eyes and hear their voices and remember. We must remember.

On the way home I pondered, as I often do on this day, the sheer number of Jewish lives lost. Over SIX MILLION. Of that, some 1.5 million were children. I thought, my God, that's the population of Philadelphia! And those were just the children. Over twice the population of Chicago, just gone, in a handful of years. How do I teach this to my children and not have them terrified of being a Jew? How do I help them understand that there are people, still, who have that much hate just because we are Jews, but assure them they don't have to be afraid?

Then as I'm thinking of my own beautiful, innocent children my mind wonders, as it often does when trying to  reconcile such atrocities in my head, to the countless horrors I have read about what happened to these children. My heart weeps, for their suffering and their fear and for their mothers who had to watch. I have similar reactions when I watch Criminal Minds or the news for that matter and I can't even fathom such things happening to my children. I can't fathom surviving it! But people did. People survived and married and had children and grandchildren and led beautiful lives... and their children were not afraid.

People have asked why we talk about the Holocaust so much and so often. Why we have a remembrance day of something so awful. I've been asked, why didn't they fight back. Most of these people asked when I was in my infancy of learning what it meant to be a Jew and I didn't have much  knowledge aside the book Night, The Dairy of Anne Frank, a bit from my Intro to Judaism class in college and what is taught in high school history.

What I would tell them now, what I will tell Rylie and Caleb when they ask is this... We talk about it often because we CAN NOT forget. When you stop talking about something, you slowly forget and then the next generation learns very little and the generation after that knows even less or maybe nothing at all. And that is precisely how history repeats itself. So we talk about it and we teach our children and we educate the community because people need to know just how awful this time in human history was. It wasn't just the Nazi's cruelty and hatred. Nearly everyone turned a blind eye. People knew and most did nothing to stop it, until it impacted them directly. People need to hear the horrors and understand what hate and intolerance of people who are different can lead to. This wasn't an isolated event. Genocides have occurred since and are going on right now. I like to think because we talk about the Shoah so often that more people are aware and that is why more people work so hard to fight these atrocities that are going on today.

I like to think that the Jews who are fighting to help end these genocides today are fighting back. Those that tell their stories are fighting back. Maybe they didn't start a rebellion then but MANY did. Today is the day of remembrance as it falls during the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. I would tell that person who asked me why they didn't fight and I will tell my children, THEY DID fight and we still are. But really, who can blame those that didn't? Who would believe that they were being sent off to gas chambers? That's INSANE! I don't know that I would have believed it.

I always try to end the day remembering that while most looked the other way, so many did not. I then of course have to push aside the anger at those who helped but it seems had their own agenda in doing so. While this is common knowledge among Jews, I say this considering how many children were not returned to their family members, if any survived (often none did), or at least a Jewish family. Instead they were converted, often never even knowing they were Jews; their children and grandchildren never knowing who they are. Hundreds of thousands (I'm guessing) more Jews lost because they were "saved". This story is often in the back of my mind as I put my children to bed each night.

It's funny how God always shows up when I most need a burst of hope. Just two nights ago, as I put Rylie to bed she recited, or some might say shouted, the last four words of the Shema after I began it. She often says the last word independently and sometimes will repeat after me but never nearly the whole (6 word) prayer! I was so proud, and of course laughing at just how loud she burst out "Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad" that I just couldn't bare "shush" her despite fears of Caleb waking up. Then I breathed a sigh of relief as I thought, she'll always know who she is. (and because she didn't wake the baby!)

So I had a lot of emotions today, as I always do when I think of, read about or watch movies that remind me such hatred exists in our world. Turns out today is also 10 months since my Pap passed which took me awhile to notice but then realized that could explain some of the additional emotions that seemed to originate out of nowhere. Then tonight, as Rylie gave us a difficult time with going to bed, I thought of her little outburst of the Shema the other night and it made me smile. I think my Pap was smiling too. And I hope those parents who perished in the Holocaust and subsequently whose babies were converted against their will are smiling. Like every year on Yom HaShoah, I reconciled my weeping heart by remembering that there was love and compassion from complete strangers and there were countless stories of survival, which means there's hope. Hope for the future of all humanity. There's hope for those who are suffering as I type.

We all need to keep fighting for them and Never Forget.

Love and Shalom
(and goodnight!)